Author: Sophie Beach

Sophie Beach lives in Berkeley, California. She previously served as senior research associate for Asia at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based press freedom organization. She received her master's degree from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Her writing about China has been published in the Los Angeles Times, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the South China Morning Post, The Nation magazine, and other publications.

The Wall Street Journal explores land ownership in China, and the economic and political factors which lead to farmers being pushed off their land and often into lives of poverty:
The root of the problem is an economic system that allows local government and developers to make vast profits from one-sided land deals with farmers who have little legal ability to resist.
That situation,

Since his ascent to the top of the Communist Party, Xi Jinping has pushed a public image of change and approachability, while announcing a crackdown on corruption at all levels of government. In the New York Times, Chris Buckley writes about the tensions between this public face and private messages he is sending to the party, including a speech in December when he appeared to take a